


which is infinite (which is yes)

by hitlikehammers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Codependency, Emotional Sex, Love, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Schmoop, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 07:59:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2644232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He grabs for Bucky, buries his face into Bucky's chest as much to catch his breath as to breathe Bucky <i>in</i>—as much to hear the thrashing of Bucky’s beating heart as to slow his own, to bring them back to ground: together.</p><p>“Every time,” Bucky murmurs. “Every time, it's like you can’t believe it. Like I'm some kinda marvel, and you can't believe I’m here.”</p><p>Bucky shakes his head, and his voice goes low, and if Steve weren’t so close he might have missed it; if Steve didn’t know exactly what he meant, it might have gotten lost. </p><p>“Y’got it all backward, you know.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	which is infinite (which is yes)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luninosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/gifts).



> I asked [luninosity](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/) for a prompt in hopes of reducing the impact of _meh_ -ness; this hopefully fits the bill? 
> 
> As per usual: all the adoration and gratefulness and hugs to [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad/) for looking it over <3
> 
> And credit to the brilliance of [E. E. Cummings](http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/03/cdisalvo/cummings2/) for the title.

Even as he gasps for the air that’s getting real fucking thin around them—musk-laden and too hot to pant through; even as he rocks upward into the downstroke of the body on top of him, all warm solidity and unbearable heat—even as his dick throbs with it, and his eyes sting with it: as those eyes stare into him, and he stares back, and there’s more color in that gaze than he’s ever seen before, even _then_ , Steve can’t quite believe this is real.

The palm that balances against the heaving line of his sternum is a brand, though, and a vow: warm metal against the slick planes of his chest, and Steve knows what that hand can feel, knows that it picks out the rampant, guileless drumming of the heart beneath its splay; knows from the gleam on Bucky’s wet lips, parted as he draws back before pistoning down, enveloping Steve in one fluid roll of those hips that Bucky’s reading the soul in Steve’s motions, in Steve’s every slight-strained breath: he’s reading the soul and he knows, he’s gotta fucking _know_ that Steve would cut it out, would rip it from his own ribs, his own flesh and bleed with the loss to give it any more wholly than it already belongs to this man on top of him, this man wrapped around him: this man who means everything.

This _man_.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Steve moans, the sound wrung from the base of his throat as Bucky lifts up, clenching slow around Steve’s length as he moves, as Steve’s lungs contract hard against the loss of Bucky’s heat up to the tip, as Bucky grins at him, all penny-candy-under-the-tongue with how he shines with it, how the sweat gleams off his skin, more than Steve’s ever known or ever earned, more than his chest can hold and more than he understands how to grasp and keep and never fail again.

“Fuck, Bucky, I can’t,” and Bucky’s leaning, settling onto Steve’s shaft with painful, perfect, maddening precision, sheathing Steve before he stills, before his eyes flutter closed and he breathes, breathes, breathes: chest heaving, pulse pumping shrill and damn near violent around Steve’s cock and Steve could peak from that alone, if it wasn’t fucking torment, if he was ready to tremble down, to split apart at his goddamned seams.

“Buck, c’mon,” Steve gasps it, whines it, _needs_ it as Bucky balances, precarious and yet absolutely solid, potential energy and stalled momentum, not even breathing as his blood thunders hard and Steve can feel it like it’s his, and he wants it, he wants it, it belongs to _him_ —

“Come _on_ ,” he grits out, nerves sparking as he cants upward, but Bucky rocks back, soft and smooth, bites his bottom lip as he denies Steve the friction, the satisfaction, but then his eyes snap open, and Steve sees it, sees it and feels it deep in his bones, trapped beneath his own shaking heart, because this isn’t the first time, this isn’t new between them anymore, and yet Bucky’s not trying to keep him from the tipping point, from release and pleasure and all the warmth that follows; no.

Bucky’s trying to keep them both from an end.

And Steve knows the moment that Bucky gleans that recognition from his eyes, stretched wide, because that’s when Bucky grabs for the headboard with his right hand and cradles Steve’s head with his left, lifts Steve to his mouth and never breaks the union of their bodies as he rocks just slightly, just so before he seals his lips over Steve's, before he steals the breath in Steve’s lungs and holds it hostage, refuses to give it back as he dives deeper, as he licks against the backs of Steve’s teeth and tries to drink him whole through the mouth of him, straight down past the heart and back and Steve can feel the burn of it, can feel the heavy thumping of his pulse gaining weight, forcing desperation thick where oxygen is scarce but Steve doesn’t pull away, doesn’t fight except to _keep_ , as Bucky sucks on his tongue and clenches tight around his length and Steve can feel the rhythm start to sink, start to vibrate in the marrow of his bones, feels lightheaded and weightless, and he could die where Bucky stands, with Bucky wrapped around him and it would be everything he’s ever been denied, and he’d sink in the dark knowing he was loved and it’s only when he comes that Bucky gasps and gives him back the world—it’s only when Steve spills into Bucky’s shaking frame, and Bucky’s coming hard against Steve’s skin that Steve tastes air again, like acid in his lungs and all he can think, all he can know is that it’s sour, it’s lacking, it’s nothing.

Compared to Bucky, the taste of air is _less_.

He grabs for Bucky, no thought, no care, no sense for the mess caught between them as Bucky shifts so Steve doesn’t slip out from him, doesn’t have to be anywhere but as close as he can get to being inside Bucky’s skin: buries his face into Bucky’s chest as much to catch his breath as to breathe Bucky _in_ —as much to hear the thrashing of Bucky’s beating heart as to slow his own, to bring them back to ground: together.

“Y’got it all backward, you know.” 

Bucky’s voice is rain against the storm as he settles, as he rests his weight on Steve, shifts them slow so that Steve’s still wrapped up in him, soft now but unwilling to invite any distance; so that Steve’s head is pillowed tight against Bucky’s chest.

“Hmmm?”

Bucky’s lips brush the line where scalp meets the sweat-slick strands of hair. “Every time,” Bucky murmurs; “You end up like this.” 

And Steve shivers from the center of him: it echoes through him, it takes the way his world moves and shakes it forth to vibrate through new frequencies; bolder. Better. 

“You press up close, ‘n listen.” Bucky exhales, a rush that muffles the hammering life that lives between the lungs. 

“Like you can’t believe it’s there,” Bucky’s voice goes low, and if Steve weren’t so close he might have missed it; if Steve didn’t know exactly what he meant, it might have gotten lost. 

“Like you can’t believe _I’m_...”

And if Steve gasps, if something gets caught in Steve’s own chest: if he burrows in closer to Bucky’s body as proof of fact, of life—if the sound of the heart of him is calming, slower, quieting quick and Steve needs to follow it, to seek it out, then goddamn it _all_ , he will do it, because there’s no logic, here: there’s no reason or rationale for the only part of his own heart that’d always known to race, the only piece of his being that’d never faltered or wavered or threatened to give way—there’s no justifying Bucky, here; now. With him.

And maybe Steve forgot what faith was beyond James Buchanan Barnes. Maybe this is prayer and worship—maybe this is reading scripture and chanting psalms and singing off-key from a hymnal made only for this, only for them.

Maybe Steve’s a heathen, and this is how he repents: this is how he slakes his doubt.

He presses closer; he listens harder.

He proves what can’t be told.

“But it’s the other way ‘round,” Bucky says soft, and Steve damn well whimpers as Bucky lifts off of him, away from him: as Bucky eases them so that it’s Steve who Bucky’s curled around, against: shielding him even as he makes himself small against Steve’s frame.

“It wasn’t me who was chasin’ death all those years,” Bucky says, lips pressed against the proof of that very chase, the proof of the failure to catch where it lived at the notch of Steve’s throat. “All that _time_.” 

Bucky’s breath isn’t even as he mouths down Steve’s collarbone, as fingers lilt against Steve’s skin and raise gooseflesh to the touch: Bucky’s shaking as he fits his mouth against the buds of Steve’s nipples, as he traces the map of Steve’s veins, the outline of Steve’s heavy-thumping heart where it makes itself known and Steve laces his fingers into Bucky’s hair, holds him steady—Steve teases Bucky’s own pulse at the temple with his fingerprints, leaves himself in all the places that matter, presses indelible on every inch of the man in his arms.

“It’s this,” Bucky whispers, tongue wet on the skin of Steve’s chest. “It’s _you_ who’s the miracle, Stevie.” 

Bucky purses lips and kisses slow, soft; delicate and tender and reverent like Steve’s a gift from god when no: not Steve.

But _them_ —

“Living, breathing marvel,” Bucky confesses to the flesh of him, to the self and the soul that belong wholly to Bucky: that don’t need to be claimed to be _held_. “Always were.”

And if Steve’s blood’s still racing, if his pulse is still a drum, it’s not for exertion, or the push of the body: it’s for the weight of being and the lightness of feeling and Bucky Barnes wrapped tight around him so that Steve can feel his weight, can know his breath. It’s for the affirmation between them, here, that the truth’s never been about logic or reason; that faith has never lived, never known to _wonder_ , never learned to fit outside the touch of doubt: if Steve can barely see against the rush of it, it’s for one heart, tucked warm against another. 

It’s for the miracle that fits, instead.

**Author's Note:**

> Yep. Still on [tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com), where, apropos of nothing, I've recently discovered there's a maximum for queued posts? Crazy.


End file.
